ARTICULATE SPEECH OF THE HEART

The following interview with U-2's Bono took place in the neat bungalow on the beach near Howth which the singer shares with his wife Alison.

Unlike so many rock interviews which are conducted under very strict time limitations - Bono's own record is 16 in one day! - this was a long and free-ranging conversation which lasted from midnight until near dawn and yielded up three full hours of tape, the equivalent of 60 pages of foolscap transcript. Present for the initial part of the conversation were Bono. Alison, yours truly and my partner in crime Rosemarie but the bulk of the interview was a one to one exchange - with the notable exception of an odd and somewhat disquieting incident on the road near the house around four in the morning. As we were walking and talking a car pulled up at the kerb beside us, out of which popped a Henry Cooper lookalike - either a cop or a vigilante; when asked he refused to identify himself and since he was fondling a wrench in his right hand, we didn't exactly push the point - who gave us a snappy interrogation before climbing back into his car and speeding off into the night. But that, as they say is another story. And if this story is to get to press on time, we'd best dispense with all other formalities and get straight down to business.

As you join us, cheese crackers and coffee are being consumed, Bono is vaulting through the years and, in defiance of the laws of mathematics, explaining how four into one can go. It was music, he says, which forged their friendship rather than vice versa.

"We were four completely different people, four people going nowhere and we decided to go there together. Four rejects, on all different levels, from the system. Four people - four intelligent people - who probably wouldn't be accepted for the E.S.B. or The Civil Service. The only thing we had in common was the music but there was, and is, quite an odd unity.

"We go to parties all the time", he says jumping back to the present, "be it L.A., New York, London, wherever, people throw parties for us and everybody arrives - tennis stars, people in the movie business. They're all there. And four of us will go into this room, rapping away to different people and you'll find an hour later, the same four people all talking to each other. And yet we've been on a bus together or in a hotel room all day long. And to this day, there is no friction".

And the cast, as it was in the beginning ...

"There was Edge and his brother Dik - two people who were anti-guitar heroes, anti-heroes full stop. Edge would only take his guitar out on formal occasions - not a man to sleep with it. Or even put new strings on it!

"And there was Adam who was the guy who would wear a dress into school or take his clothes off when we were rehearsing. He was always into vibing people out. Into blowing heads.

"And there was Larry. It's Larry's fault - he did start it. He's a very complex character. The way he hits the bass drum is the thing that makes this group still a rock 'n' roll group (as well as all the other things). People talk about U-2 being a "live group" or "the only live group" and they'll talk about me as the singer; because Bono will jump off the balcony to make a point - but it's not me at all, it's Larry's bass drum".

And Bono, self-confessed "introvert and extrovert", please allow him to introduce himself.

"That's another thing. I'm the singer in the group U-2 and people expect things from me that I can't quite honestly give them - which is to be the life and soul of the party. There are nights when I'll stand up on the table and I'll take my clothes off (laughs) and there'll be another night when I'm afraid to even sit down …"

"... or walk into a room", says Alison.

Bono: "It's something for Ali to understand – there are nights when I'll be petrified about things. In school it was the same.

"Right now, when we've just come back from the American tour - and I've been used to being on-stage every night - round about 9 o'clock I start rocking in the chair and there's something trying to get out of me. But that's something I share with my father - containing within me these total opposites. If people think of me as "The Lad", they're making a big mistake - they've got it very wrong.

"When I'm talking to you, I'm talking to a lot of people who are interested in what I'm interested in which is music - and our music. So I'm talking to an audience as well as to you and I open myself up to you because I'm opening myself up to my audience.

"So sometimes when I meet a writer it was "No bullshit! Wham! There it is!" and a lot of people fell backwards. And sometimes it would come out as: "with some groups" - and I remember this - "With some groups you have to really fight hard to find out what they have on their mind but with Bono he's giving it to you" and it's all "what a nice guy" and sometimes I want to say "look, I'm not a nice guy - shut up - I'll slap your face - I'll show you that you're misunderstanding what I'm trying to do." 'Cos I know what I'm doing. I'm not stupid. But I'm not prepared to go through the bullshit and I think that's important to understand".

U-2's road to Damascus experience - the event which transformed them from being what Bono describes as "the world's worst garage band" into a group which could, and would evolve into a major force on the international stage - was that first memorable realisation of their own creative potential.

"That was an amazing feeling," says Bono. "Creativity! There is nothing there, it's a vacuum, a void and suddenly there is something there and it's a song and it says something - maybe significant, maybe insignificant. And it can be played on radios all over the world from Tokyo to San Francisco. That's the potential of a song and it's an amazing potential. And when we started watching songs come out, our own songs that sounded like nobody else - that was exciting".

The creative process still fascinates Bono. He gets up from his chair and rewinds a tape in a ghettoblaster - a present he got which is so enormous that a person would require the shoulder padding of an American pro-footballer to carry it in the de rigeur fashion - zeroing in at the beginning of the first of three songs he'll play during the course of the night. Actually, the word "song" is somewhat misleading. In reality the music, recorded live at soundchecks, is in a very embryonic state, but as the various instruments, at first tentatively and then with increasing assurance fall into place and develop the theme, one can catch the spark of U-2's special alchemy. Bono provides an enthusiastic running commentary, pointing out that not a note I'm hearing had been rehearsed prior to recording. It's the sound of flesh and blood being applied to the merest ghost of an idea.

"That's four people who really know each other" he says with justifiable pride. "That's what comes of being a group. There are very few groups in the world really. There are a lot of groups with a singer or something but it's not the same."

Bono fast forwards the tape and locates another sketch captured at a soundcheck in Florida. Heard in its nascent. formative stage this music has a haunting appeal, The Edge's guitar clear and singing. Bono reveals that the guitarist has recently been listening to "a lot of Nigerian guitar players, also Ry Cooder, people like that".

And even as I'm listening to a song evolving on tape, U-2's music, in the broader sense, continues to evolve - because if it's to retain its vitality it has to.

"You can't parody yourself', Bono states. "There were so many groups sounding like us at one point that when we'd play a song we'd say "that sounds a bit like U-2 - hold on a second we are U-2! " (laughs) - that was happening. You nearly parody yourself and you've got to stop. That was what Edge had to do anyway.

"People all over America say "what about these people who are robbing your sound!" and Edge's reply to that has always been, "well look, y'know fine, take the sound - but it's not a sound that makes music good, it's where that sound comes and why it's coming out of a person and they can't copy that.

"And it is definitely The Edge. The crew have a joke about it. They have to set up his amps and put the guitar on and I've put my fingers where Edge puts his fingers and I've had his amps and his machines and the settings that he has them on and I've played and it sounds like ... no good! And it's him it's truly the way he plays and I think whatever instrument he plays will always have that distinctive quality. But there was a time when he was so distinctive he was running into trouble. So he stopped playing it and got into rock 'n' roll guitar and he got into acoustic guitar".

When Bono says that "everyone has their own theory about this group - what it is we really are", he's scarcely being self-indulgent. For a band who have so openly and honestly expressed themselves from the outset, U-2 have, paradoxically, had to deal with an inordinate amount of misinterpretation and even prejudice. At the very least, there have been a lot of misconceptions. Bono catalogues a few of them.

"First of all we started out and made "Boy" which is a sexual L.P. and we changed the cover in America to stop any concern there might be about paedophilia and the like because it was our first album. But import copies got in and, as you know. in America a lot of music is broken first in gay clubs and so we had a gay audience, a lot of people who were convinced the music was specifically for them. So there was a misconception if you like.

"Then in London there was the whole conception of "Paddies" maybe. "What are they?" They thought of the Boomtown Rats, they thought of Rory Gallagher, they though of Van the Man - "Irishness" was even a box people tried to put us into but that's a box we're quite proud to be in because our music is Irish.

"Then after "Boy" we made "October" which is a spiritual elpee and a lot of people went: "What the hell is going on here" - especially in England where people wouldn't be aware of how much religion is part of everyday life here in Ireland and how much stick people get here. They're not aware of how deep that runs. So they went off on that one for a while.

"So then "War" came out and to some people in America again, it was "the political band" and they loved it and they failed to see that "War" was an emotional elpee rather than a political one.

"So there have been misconceptions all the way and it's like chasing your tail. So I just stopped. But I find it interesting to see the amount of controversy that surrounds a group, I mean, I have heard amazing stories. about myself that I only wish were true. (laughs)".

Still, the myths persist. Earlier, on the day I talked with Bono, an acquaintance upon learning that I was going to do a U-2 interview announced that the group were his "pet hate" describing them scornfully as "goody goody Christians" or words to that effect. It's not the first time that Bono has heard such blanket allegations.

"That arose because journalists failed to see the intelligence of what we were doing in avoiding those rock 'n' roll games", he retorts. "A lot of people talked about trying to avoid cliches in their music but they weren't interested in trying to avoid cliches in their lifestyle.

"It was like "Boy" - the child's face. 'Is this about innocence - Oh, they're innocent' That's the joke. We were trying to do what a lot of those people in papers were talking about but when it hit them, they didn't realise what it was. As Edge says: "We beat them at our own game. We knew what we were doing.

"People talk about taboos in rock 'n' roll. People say that "they're into breaking down taboos", like say, S & M or whatever. They talk about all this and it's totally conservative. They talk about music and how it should open up to new areas. Look, there are few singers, few musicians. few painters who aren't aware of the third part of their being - the spirit. And I just expressed that in the music and a few people pressed the panic button.

"But I was determined. And getting back to John Lennon (whose music Bono has been listening to recently) there was a man who, however unfashionable however uncontemporary his beliefs were, because they were his beliefs, he exposed himself. He was saying, well this is it, what do you want - no music or the truth? Because if I lie, the music will choke on itself. That's the choice. And I was going through that on "October" - what is the choice, write about Johnny and Mary or what? Would you like me to ram love songs down your throat, love songs that I don't believe in? People used to say that U-2 have never written love songs - well what do they want instead of that? I mean do people prefer lies? I think that's the question people should ask.

"As it is the lyrics are autobiographical - and there are four people in this group not one. Our music is not just inviting people to my own nightmare or daydream. It's much more than that. It is, when it comes down to it, very aggressive rock 'n' roll music - very aggressive. I think it's aggressive in its insight as well as in the music. And I think you feel you're doing something right when you get plus and minus reaction like we've been getting.

"People would not react if I went out and carried on like Elvis Presley or Mick Jagger or David Bowie. People do react if I go out and carry on like Bono. And I like that. That's the best indication that I'm right for my time".

And, one more time with feeling. Bono makes it clear that his faith, based on his own personal beliefs and values, has nothing to do with the rabid proselytising of the Born-again movement nor the dogmaticism of traditional organised religion.

"I'm not a religious person", he states emphatically. "I'm frightened by religion. I've seen what it's done to this country. I've seen what it's done to people around me. I go to America and I turn on my television set and I start sweating profusely because those guys have turned faith into an industry. It's appalling. It's ugly-this guy's hand is virtually coming out of the television set and I just want to throw the television out the window. I'm not a guy who went to mass every week. I've never allowed anybody to ram anything down my throat and I would never try to do the same thing".

We move on to talk about "War", U-2's third album and the one which through its outstanding commercial successes in Britain and America, confirmed the band's arrival as an international force. Creatively, it was no less important, the music showing U-2's determination to expand the frontiers of their sound while lyrically, it saw them moving on from the essentially introspective writing they'd concentrated on in the past, to tackle wider issues of the day.

As Bono puts it: "Whereas the previous two elpees had been inward-looking, "War" was outward looking. Whereas the previous two elpees had, in the lyric sense, been impressionistic, splashing paint on the canvas. "War" was more like graffiti, I suppose."

"Sunday Bloody Sunday" was the song, which especially in Ireland, aroused most interest, but it was the band's experience of Irish-American republican sentiment on their U.S. tour which directly influenced its creation. Bono recalls one particular incident which stopped him in his tracks.

"I walked out of the backstage door in San Francisco and there were about 30 or 40 people waiting for a chat and for autographs and I was scrawling my name on bits of paper as they were handed to me. I got this one piece of paper and was about to write on it and something in me said "hold on a second". The paper was folded and when I opened it, there was this big dogma thing looking for signatures - I was about to sign my name on a petition to support some guy I'd never heard of, an Irish guy with republican connections. And I got worried at that stage.

"I mean as much as I'm a republican I'm not a very territorial person. The whole idea of the white flag on stage was to get away from Green White and Orange, to get away from the Stars and Stripes, to get away from the Union Jack. I am an Irishman and we are an Irish group - stop! But I'm frightened of borders, frightened of restrictions on those levels and I get scared when people start saying they're prepared to kill to back up their belief in where a border should be. I mean, I'd love to see a united Ireland but I just don't believe you can put a gun to somebody's head, at anytime to make him see your way.

"Sunday Bloody Sunday" is a day that no Irishman can forget but should forget which is what we were saying - "how long must we sing this song?" When I introduce it I say: "this isn't a rebel song". The name comes up all the time and we're saying "how long must we have songs called "Sunday Bloody Sunday". That's one area in which I agree with Bob Geldof - history is just one mistake after another".

I suggest that perhaps the North of Ireland's greatest tragedy is the conditioning which sees each new generation (with honourable exceptions) assuming precisely the same attitudes as their elders, thus guaranteeing that the stalemate continues.

Bono: "You just think of a young guy sitting in watching TV with his family and there's a knock on the door and then the door comes down and British soldiers walk in, turn over the house, maybe his father takes a blow from a rifle butt and that young guy grows up in hatred. Then you cut to another street where there's another boy and another family watching the same TV programme and there's a knock on the door and his Dad who's an RUC man answers it and is blown away on the doorstep. And that young boy grows in hate. Two people polarised with so much in common - that's the tragedy".

Returning to the genesis of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" Bono comments: "Our music is primarily uplifting but at the same time there's a realism to our music as opposed to an escapism. I think, which must acknowledge influences. And it was when I realised that the troubles had not affected me, that it started to affect me. People said "how can you in Dublin write a song about what is happening over the border?" and I didn't know what to say - but the bombs may not go off in Dublin but they're made here.

"And what I was trying to say in that song is: There it is. In close-up. I'm sick of it. How long must it go on?' It's a statement. It's not even saying here's an answer.

"It's just saying - how long must this go on?"

As the night rolls on, our conversation moves into a more general discussion about the value of music, its oft-questioned power to communicate something of importance, its potential to move people, perhaps even to .change them.

Bono recalls Dylan: "He said there are two types of music - healing music and music that is destructive. I believe music has great healing.

"Half of me says I know I can't change the world" and there's another half of me that, every time I write a song I want it to change the world. I don't know if that's naivety or stupidity in me but I do know that music has changed me and I know that in Vietnam music helped change a generation's attitudes. I don't try to change the world, I don't even try to change people - but in the same way I've changed I think other people change too. What's important is the individual, that's where you start. In Rolling Stone I said that revolution begins in your heart, in your refusal to compromise your own beliefs, and I think that expresses it".

And U-2's contribution? Bono states that he's "interested in revolution" and believes that in terms of what U-2 "stand for in the business, what we have done is truly rebellious".

He mentions artists like Springsteen, Simple Minds and Big Country as "kindred spirits - different music but kindred spirits. We're all dreamers, I suppose.

"People say that a U-2 concert and a Clash concert are similar in terms of reaction" he says, "but I think they're worlds apart. I like the Clash and I like Joe Strummer, I think he's an honest man and I don't want to be hard on them. But sometimes people go to a concert, any concert, and they're nervous. There's tension there and, at some concerts I've been to, the tension is still there at the end when people walk out. A U-2 concert seems to be different, and that's the healing thing, the washing thing. I really believe that rock 'n' roll is very powerful".

Playing devil's advocate, I counter that people might argue that such an experience is a transient one, lasting only for the duration of the concert itself.

"But there's unity for an hour and a half", he replies musicians can do what politicians can't do and I think those feelings, those communal feelings are quite addictive. You feel that warmth and you go after it. Rock 'n' roll should be a release. If the Garda Siochana realised that at our concerts in Gaiety Green car park, there was a real explosion, a real release, the steam pouring from the valve ... Rock 'n' roll is for that and it's best expressed in music, which is a positive thing, than to express it all over somebody's face in a blow.

"Y'know I want to inspire people and fire up people. You know that thing: "Lie down in your own mess". Our music is not something to lie down to, to get out of to, to die to, to commit suicide to. It's not a soundtrack to a nervous breakdown. It's music to fire people up so that maybe they will fight back, not again, with sticks and stones but in some other way, some other channel.

"And I think that's a fact, that's real. I know that a lot of good things have happened. Sometimes with U-2 you can end up talking about U-2 in the abstract but the music is very real".

I think you can see that something has come to an end in this group and that certain things have brought that to a head and I really feel that we are about to start again", Bono tells me at one point in our discussion, and, indeed, if there's a central theme around which the night's conversation revolves, it's that of re-appraisal and re-birth.

Again the band's experiences in America, particularly on their most recent three-month tour, have had a notable impact. Bono cites a specific example.

"People are quite aware that there's no stage big enough for me - I like to stretch the stage and I've often found myself singing from the back of the hall rather than the front. I'm always trying to get across, to communicate.

"At the US festival, I climbed to the top of the stage to get to the people at the back - there were 300,000 there - and I put a white flag at the top and it counted as a symbol, a broadstroke to that mass of people.

"But another time I went into the audience in L.A. at a big sports complex - there were about 12,000 people there - with a big white flag, and the flag was torn to shreds and I was nearly torn to shreds.

"I got onto the balcony and I found myself looking down and then I found myself jumping about 20 feet into this sea of people, and they caught me and passed me along from the back until eventually I got up onto the stage nearly naked, wondering "what have I done, what's happened?" Because although the people caught me, some other people jumped off the balcony after and there was, but there may not have been, people to catch them. And it was at that stage I had to think - responsibility. I mean, the place had gone berserk - what if somebody had died?

"Also as you know, punks in L.A. are into slamdancing which is quite aggressive and as they were tearing the flag to shreds I found myself getting this guy and slamming him against the wall - I was really going for him. I thought: "what's happening to me?" Again that's all part of the rethink and seeing these three albums as the end of an era".

As is often the case, being abroad has paradoxically also made Bono and U-2 much more aware of their native environment. In a practical sense he speaks of Dublin and Ireland as "an anchor": "I love to live here, I love to play here. I love to record here. So many other groups have left this country - they got out as soon as they got the fare for the boat - but we've stayed".

And as we walk along the beach outside his house at three in the morning he elaborates on his feelings about what it is to be Irish and how it's likely to affect U-2's music.

"My ambition for U-2 has always been to push it to its limits -the most aggressive music ever made and, at the same time the most sensitive, different levels. I woke up a few months ago and found out I was Irish (laughs) and that has made an impact and it's going to make an impact on the music. Because this is an Irish group and I'm realising that the very weapons you need are all around you.

"I went to see the film "Bladerunner" which had this city of the 90's very powerfully represented on the screen, a very claustrophobic place, the city reaching right up into the stratosphere. Visually I was impressed but there was something wrong - and it was the music. The music was by Vangelis - and I am a fan of Vangelis - but I was thinking that in the 90's people won't be listening to electronic music - who wants electronic music in an electronic age? I've nothing against synths, contrary to popular belief - it's the machines who play the machines that worry me (laughs).

"But I feel that right now, something is about to happen, in music, in painting, in architecture, everything. Modernism is about to be thrown out the window because in an age that Bladerunner represented, there's a humanity that's needed and the music of the 90's I believe will be ethnic music, black music, soul music, reggae music, cajun music - this will be the music of the future because it has a humanity that city dwellers will need.

"You mentioned about Bruce Springsteen coming to see us - well we went out for dinner and we had this 90 minute row-cum-rap. I was talking about "Nebraska" and saying. I believed the reason it was successful was the fragile quality of the music. There were tones and textures in the acoustic guitar and mouth organ, an intimacy, that people hadn't heard for a while. All they'd heard was that snare drum - bash! bash!

"So we used the uileann pipes on "Tomorrow" and there's an incredible power to those reedy instruments - the violin, for example, is the nearest instrument to the human voice. There's a timelessness there. In an era when the hands of the clock are sweeping by so fast, there's a timelessness to those sounds, I'm interested in".

Bono was particularly impressed by Clannad's "Harry's Game" which was played at the end of every date on U-2's last U.S. tour. - "They're doing something that is truly innovative and it inspired us" he says- but, for all his enthusiasm, he's quick to point out that the traditional influence is just one among many which he's currently preoccupied with. Add to it U-2's abiding interest in dance music, and the Edge's aforementioned exploration of Nigerian guitar and your guess about the nature of U-2's next elpee (which incidentally, rumour has it may be produced by Conny Plank) is as good as mine. Or for that matter Bono's.

"I can't tell you where we're about to go but I know that I can't sleep at night with the thoughts of it. I'm so excited about this idea that we've just begun - the way I feel is that we're undertaking a real departure. I can't stop talking about it. lt would take about 10 men to hold me down at the moment."

And the final word before breakfast and bed.

"People say we take ourselves too seriously and I might have to plead guilty to that. But really I don't take myself seriously, we don't take ourselves seriously - but we do take the music seriously".

Liam Mackey

Vol 7 No 15 August 5th, 1983.